We’re all used to the Murdoch empire’s endless holy wars against perceived enemies or progressive causes. But when it comes to his own children, surely Rupert Murdoch has a limit to abusing his power and stripping their privileges.
After copping a 93-page shellacking from Nevada probate commissioner Edmund J. Gorman Jr, Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch should give this scandalous family control grab a rest and instead embrace the peace sentiment from James, Elisabeth and Prudence, who jointly said yesterday they hope they can “move beyond this litigation to focus on strengthening and rebuilding relationships among all family members”.
And what does Rupert’s big-noting celebrity lawyer Adam Streisand do in response? He immediately declares a plan to appeal. Talk about tone-deaf. It’s fair to say that James Murdoch, who turns 51 on Friday, won’t be getting any birthday wishes from father Rupert and older brother Lachlan, who reportedly spent some time together in Australia.
Lachlan appears obsessed with James and prepared to do almost anything to keep him at bay. As The New York Times reporting of the judgment reveals, it was Lachlan’s idea to ask Rupert to make the outrageous unilateral change to the family trust — which would have given permanent control of the conservative media empire comprising Fox and News Corporations to Lachlan after Rupert dies — with just a day’s notice before an emergency trust meeting in London.
The probate commissioner, however, found that the three legally victorious adult children did not share “any singleness of purpose in changing the management of Fox News” and actually “disavowed any plan to oust their brother”, ruling against Rupert and Lachland’s plan. As such, it would be extraordinary of Rupert to soldier on with Lachlan’s paranoid schemes.
What sort of father summons his two adult daughters to an emergency family trust meeting in London and gives them virtually no notice of his plan to remove their equal voting rights, negotiated over many months during his divorce proceedings with second wife Anna Murdoch almost two decades earlier? The optics of a 93-year-old man on his fifth marriage refusing to trust his two adult daughters to manage long-standing tensions between Lachlan and James says a lot about the patriarch’s misogyny.
Surely it is time for a negotiated family settlement by agreement, not judicial decree. For instance, why is Lachlan the only family member entitled to serve as a director of the two public companies at the heart of the family’s media power, Fox Corp and News Corp? Were the other three adult children even consulted when Lachlan and Rupert decided to replace the retiring former Ford CEO and BHP chairman Jac Nasser with Tony Abbott on the Fox Corp board last year? This first executive move — made after Rupert’s retirement from both boards was announced in September last year — sent a clear message about the muscular right-wing path Lachlan wanted to take.
It was always going to be difficult for Rupert to prove in court that his heirs would face disaster unless Lachlan was given complete control. How could he prove that James, Prudence and Elisabeth would blow up the Fox News right-wing business model, particularly given Lachlan’s record is nothing to write home about? At his first AGM run as solo chair of News Corp last month, Lachlan attracted the second-largest protest vote of the six directors up for election. A day earlier at Fox Corp’s AGM, he was the second-most opposed of their seven directors.
Indeed, if you strip out the 103.5 million shares or 44% voting stake that Rupert Murdoch personally controls in Fox Corp, Lachlan’s recent reelection as executive chair was only carried with 78.2 million votes in favour and a hefty 28.4 million against. It was an even more pronounced protest at News Corp, where a clear majority of the independent shareholders supported an activist resolution to unwind the company’s undemocratic capital structure that has entrenched the Murdoch family’s voting control.
The visible war between Lachlan and James has been running since the summer of 2019-20 when James went public about News Corp’s climate denialist coverage of the devastating Australian bushfires and then later quit the News Corp board altogether. Even since, he’s been playing with Lachlan’s mind, with multiple media reports suggesting that his three adult siblings will move against him once Rupert passes.
This latest setback is not the first time Rupert and Lachlan’s long-term power management plans have been foiled. In October 2022, they proposed a merger between News Corp and Fox Corp, but it was withdrawn in January 2023, reportedly after James sent letters to both boards objecting.
Rupert reportedly said the following at that fateful London trust meeting last year: “I love each of my children, and my support of Lachlan is not intended to suggest otherwise. But these companies need a designated leader and Lachlan is that leader.” This is rubbish, particularly given the governance and management challenge of leading two separate, enormous public companies.
From a one-man-control perspective, if the News Corp and Fox Corp merger had gone through, it would have been easier for Lachlan to manage the combined empire as executive chair. Instead, since Rupert’s retirement as co-chair of both boards last November, Lachlan has stepped up to head both, a clear leadership overreach, particularly for someone who insists on living in Sydney and working remotely through the night.
If it was just about money, a settlement could involve a carve-up of the assets with the dissidents receiving certain assets in exchange for cancelling their subtrust entitlements. However, given the global notoriety of Fox News and its coming peak power during the second Trump presidency, some observers believe the more progressive adult children are more interested in selling the cash machine and removing the long-term stain on the family’s reputation, rather than managing it more moderately.
Fox News is easily the most lucrative part of the Murdoch empire, and it’s the only thing apart from The Australian that Rupert started from scratch and controls to this day. Selling it would be a wrench, but if someone like Elon Musk was prepared to pay $20 billion-plus for it, bringing an end to the family wars, then why not? If Rupert was prepared to sell 21st Century Fox to Disney in 2019 and is trying to sell Foxtel now, then don’t be surprised if a potential sale of Fox News before Rupert’s death comes into play.
However, with Rupert seemingly in good health, the other tactic could be to simply abandon the appeal plans, apologise to the kids and hope that a few more years with Lachlan and Rupert in control would repair the rift. After all, News Corp shares hit a record high this month, and with Fox News ratings and profits also hitting new levels, the family empire has arguably never been in ruder financial health.
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